Christmas at Frozen Falls

by Kiley Dunbar

  Oh Jesus. ‘Only a few thousand times, Dad.’

  ‘Really? Surely not?’ he says, looking puzzled.

  Mum butts in. ‘It was nineteen seventy-nine. Our final year at high school. Another world, wasn’t it Malcolm?’

  In my head I’ve already pre-empted this. Recollections of their early romance always take place in ‘another world’. Next it’ll be the bus stop and ‘poof!’ Just listen.

  ‘Sandra Bowler had been drooling over your father for months, hadn’t she, poor girl? But I was hoping he’d ask me out, and you never did, did you, Malcolm?’

  ‘No, I never did,’ he says fondly, shaking his head at his younger self. It’s adorable, but I’ve seen this a lot, remember.

  ‘Your father was walking us both to the bus stop one night after school. It was the coldest winter we’d had in years and there was a terrible storm, coming down in buckets it was. When suddenly poof! Sandra Bowler was struck by lightning, poor girl. A zillion volts straight down the brolly handle and into her body.’

  I widen my eyes because they’re expecting a reaction.

  Satisfied, Dad takes over. ‘Well, the sight of her lying in the rain in a puddle, hair sticking up like a porcupine, was enough to have one of my pals, Jamie Field, running for her. Do you know, he knelt in that puddle by her side, he did, and clasped her hand.’

  That’s new. Porcupine is new. Nice detailing, Dad.

  ‘And she came to in his arms,’ says Mum. ‘The pair of them left together in the ambulance. And you’ll never guess?’

  Just say what. ‘What?’

  ‘They were married the following summer. We gave them a rubber bath mat as a wedding present, didn’t we, Malcolm?’

  This story gets stupider and more far-fetched every time they tell it.

  ‘That’s lovely.’ I say with a nod of finality, topping up our coffee cups.

  ‘No, it isn’t. At least it wouldn’t be lovely if it weren’t for what happened next,’ says Mum, a bit annoyed that I’m trying to wriggle out of the familiar Happy Ever After ending to this daft romantic caper. ‘You see, it took your dad weeks to ask me out after that, even though the lightning had put paid to Sandra meddling in our after school walks to the bus stop. Eventually, I said to him, “Malcolm Magnussen, are you going to take me to the end of term disco, or aren’t you?”’

  ‘And I said, “I was just building up to asking.”’

  ‘And so he did ask.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘That’s lovely. I should probably be heading off now, it’s getting late…’

  But Mum’s not done. ‘My point is, Sylvie, love, if you don’t take a chance and grab what you want with both hands and make it take you to the disco, you might end up missing out on the best things that could ever happen to you.’

  I watch my parents smile at one another. Dad pats Mum’s hand.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m being Mr Miyagied by my own mother.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know this Mr Miyagi, but I do know that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, so you need to grab hold of the one you love and make sure they know it!’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I trudge back to my flat in the increasingly heavy snow. Castlewych’s streets seem apocalyptically deserted, but I can see the lights from the tellies flickering behind blinds as I walk along and I remember that everyone’s indoors because English people don’t make Unnecessary Journeys in snowy weather.

  They’re probably inside watching news reports about the snow instead of actually setting foot in it. I’m willing to bet that across the country right now there are at least eight meteorologists standing in front of blustery motorway gantries pointing the cameras towards slow-moving traffic below and warning of black ice and treacherous conditions. Funnily enough, I didn’t see a single weather warning or snarled up road the whole time I was in easy-going, stoic, snowbound Lapland.

  My ersatz Christmas day at Mum and Dad’s has left me exhausted, so I head straight to bed when I get in, and the last thing I think of as I fall asleep is my parents’ love story.

  It was all right for them, I think, last century. They were in the same class at school, for heaven’s sake. They took the same bus every day and lived on the same street. Love was bound to come for them.

  But now, it’s more complicated than that. We’re all studying abroad, travelling overseas, chatting with people from the other side of the world at the touch of a button. And with dating technologies that can match you up to your perfect partner or let you swipe away potentially unsuitable men like you’re swatting flies, we’ve got a whole planet of people to choose from. These days, your husband’s just as likely to be in an office in Casablanca as he is to be waiting at the bus stop in Castlewych.

  And as for me, the only man I’ve ever really loved is somewhere in the wilderness right now, and no amount of lightning strikes and longing will send him running to kneel by my side in this storm. We’re worlds apart.

  I’ve been asleep for a while when I hear it. Ping! A notification. I’d left my phone on in case Nari wanted to chat, but it must be the middle of the night now. Peering at my phone in the darkness, I sit up and read in bed. It’s from Nari’s blog. She’s posted something new.

  * * *

  Readers, I’m at the airport.

  Its three a.m. on New Year’s Eve. Normally, when travelling, I’d be posting an Insta of my artfully foamed breakfast cappuccino posed quirkily on the cover of my in-flight novel right about now, or I’d be telling you the travel hack or the beauty tip I’ve just tried out, or I’d be raving about the treatment in the first class lounge or the new travel accessory I’ve blagged in return for a review, but, honestly, all I’m doing is pacing by the gate, like a bear in a cage.

  I suspect that right this second my Uber guy’s pulling away from the terminal having given me a score of one out of five and warning other drivers I’m a bit shouty, possibly insane, but this was a mercy dash, a sudden, unplanned journey.

  I have only the contents of my coat pockets with me: my passport and my credit card (and my Eight Hour Cream – I’m not an animal). My flight’s boarding in twelve minutes. And I’m going to find him.

  Niilo Henrik Oskal, if you’re reading this, somehow, out there in the arctic wilderness, I’m coming back to you #ILoveYou

  * * *

  She’s actually lost her mind, I think. But then I find I’m grinning from ear to ear, beaming with pride. My best mate, who loves adventure, is in the air this very second making her way to the man she loves on the adventure of a lifetime. She’s making it happen. That is solo travel. That is the ultimate risk.

  What will he say? Will she even find him? I can just imagine her hotwiring a skidoo and making a death-defying journey across the icy tundra in search of him.

  I wish I’d gone with her. To keep her company. Just in case.

  I wish I had her guts.

  I mean, it’s crazy, isn’t it? Dashing off to see a man who isn’t expecting you and who may or may not be in love with you. A man you can’t stop thinking about.

  Somehow I’m out from under the covers and on my feet, and the bedside light is on.

  My own suitcase is still on the floor in front of me, I’ve been too lethargic to actually put it away in the loft. I find I’m standing over it, eyeing it warily. Its unzipped lid gapes like a mouth calling to me.

  I could just chuck some clean knickers in there. And I’ve still got some euros.

  I could do a Nari.

  No! Obviously not. What are you thinking, Sylve? Anyone can see Niilo and Nari are up to their ears in the first flush of love where everything’s new and pristine and exciting. And she probably will track him down and fall into his open arms.

  But Stellan and me, we’re choked up with history and misapprehensions and me being, well… me, spoiling things.

  Then again.

  He did say he loved me, once upon a time. And it’s not like we spent last week playing Scrabble and talking about
the weather, is it? We really did still have all our old magic and a sprinkling of something new too, something grown up and more real.

  ‘Screw it!’ I shout, as I obey my impulse and tip my newly tumble-dried laundry (thanks Mum) from the basket onto the bed, and before I know it, there’s fresh pyjamas and jumpers thrown into the suitcase and I’m running, yes running, to the bathroom for my pink toothbrush, and pulling clothes on.

  As I zip up the case, having grabbed my coat, I look at Nari’s blog on my phone again, one last read through to check I’ve got the guts. She and Niilo “shared an incredible adventure together in Lapland”, she’s written. Well, so did Stellan and I. It really was incredible, like nothing that’s ever happened to me before, not since the last time I was with Stellan. And in those intervening years, fifteen whole, long years, I was just waiting for the lightning to strike again, with someone new, someone I trusted, someone I loved, but it never happened; not even with Cole, and I let him put a ring on my finger, when really, I only ever loved Stellan Virtanen.

  And at last I’m sure.

  I don’t want to be satisfied with just the crumbs. I can’t survive on morsels of memories. I don’t want an austerity diet of bits of half-recollected love. No more crumbs! I want to have the whole Stellan cake! Every rich, sweet layer of it.

  I’m texting, my fingers tapping out a staccato on the screen.

  Nari, do you think I can buy Saariselkä flights online right now?

  What am I doing? She’s in the air. She won’t see it. I’ll phone Mum and Dad, ask them for a lift to the airport, and I’ll just buy any flights I can find online while I’m waiting, slap them on a credit card, even if I have to hop between airports to get to Lapland. I’ll just buy whatever I can. How hard can it be? Nari managed it. Then again, she does have a remarkable talent for getting what she wants, and she does know literally every travel insider on the planet.

  Hold on, I’d better get my flights booked before I ring Mum and Dad, don’t want to startle them in the middle of the night, in case I can’t get anything until tomorrow…

  ‘Manchester flights, Manchester flights,’ I mumble to myself as I’m searching online. It takes a while, my phone’s being slow, and I find I’m sitting on my suitcase by the door, shoulders slumping, as I read.

  Weather warning: All regional airport flights cancelled as further heavy snow forecast

  They can’t mean all flights. They always say that, don’t they, as a precaution, but it never comes to that? I bet Heathrow’s still open.

  I get up to look out the hall window. Street lights illuminate the white blanket settling over everything, and getting thicker by the minute.

  ‘That’s just a sprinkling!’ I shout, seeing the harassed, open-mouthed woman shouting back at me in the dark glass. ‘Lapland air traffic control would laugh this off!’

  But, as I Google and scroll ticket sites and then wait in a queue listening to nerve-twanging jaunty hold music as I try to get through to an EasyJet operator, and then a rip-off last minute ticket broker, it starts to sink in. They all keep giving me the same answer: No flights for at least twenty-four hours.

  I’m not going anywhere.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  They’ve all done their best to cheer me up. All the Channel 4 and BBC presenters trying to cajole me into a Happy New Year. And this bottle of red and the selection box have done their darnedest to get me into the party spirit. But its eleven o’clock at night, an hour until the bells ring out the old year, and I’m on the sofa in a morbid slump. Mum and Dad are at Auntie Brenda and Uncle Alan’s for Twister and nibbles but I, with some relief, declined the invitation, saying I was having an early night.

  What’s so happy about a new year anyway? Another twelve months of lonely slog ahead: work, cook, tidy-up, sleep, repeat. I’m not even listening to the sweet-little-Sylvie voice at the back of my brain reminding me not to be ungrateful and that I’ve got Sunday lunches at my folks’ place to look forward to, and I’ll have Nari, if she ever comes back, and there are two hundred and thirty-eight teenagers who won’t get their rocks off about Oliver chuffing Cromwell or the Bletchley Park codebreakers without me, but right now, there’s not much comfort in any of that.

  The telly’s a bit blurry, I notice, as I empty the dregs of the bottle into the red-stained and finger-printed tumbler, and the light from my phone’s giving me a headache. I’ve been refreshing my notifications since four o’clock this morning when I finally gave up my impulsive search for non-existent flights, hoping for some word from Nari. Did she get there? Did her flight turn back? Did it ever take off?

  ‘This is the time of year we think about our loved ones and wish them well, wherever they may be,’ says a grinning, bobble-hatted Fearne Cotton from the Thames Embankment surrounded by crowds of singing, shivering drunks waiting for fireworks.

  It couldn’t hurt to wish Stellan well. A little New Year message. He’ll be back at the resort after the trail by now, surely? I’ll send him something friendly and final, something nice to find as he gets back to his cabin after five hardworking days under canvas, as he peels away his layers, takes his aching body to the sauna… his aching, muscled, fit, smooth-skinned body…

  I look at my phone screen. I’ve texted and sent something.

  I peer with seesawing, telescoping eyesight at the kaleidoscope of dancing letters. Three texts? I’ve sent three increasingly boozy texts!

  Book your flight to England and then get into my bed.

  Excellent. That doesn’t sound desperate and leery at all.

  Come and see me sometime. Soon. Please. X

  Oh God!

  Hope you have a Happy New Year. I Love You.

  Right. Well, if he hasn’t fully retreated into his crazy-lady-shy man cave before, he will now.

  Starting the New Year as you intend to go on, Sylvie Magnusson: a sad, pathetic, loser, all alone.

  I cry, for what feels like a long time, am overwhelmed with tiredness, and then nothing.

  I miss the notification at first, sleeping through the soft pinging sound. But then I sit bolt upright on the sofa, staring at my phone, just as the Embankment countdown comes to an end and fireworks pop and bang on the TV screen and all over snowy Castlewych.

  * * *

  Readers, I made it.

  I’m in the back of a cab heading to Frozen Falls resort. We were the last flight to get out, they said. Everyone else is grounded. My heart’s still swirling around in my chest from the turbulence. We flew straight through a snowstorm and the Northern lights. If I hadn’t been clinging to my seat and praying for a quick death, I’d probably have been awestruck by the beauty of the aurora out my window.

  I definitely did the right thing. I followed the irresistible pull of the magnetic north and now I’m here and it feels absolutely correct.

  And I can tell you this, right? You won’t think I’m crazy? For a minute, once we landed at the airport, I had a moment of doubt. I’d stumbled outside and there wasn’t a taxi to be seen, not a single vehicle for miles around, it seemed. And the snow was drifting in huge heaps everywhere and I realised I’m not properly dressed for this place, and I don’t even have Niilo’s number. But – and this is when you have to promise me you won’t think I’m crazy – I was entering the terminal again, ready to rethink the whole thing over a hot chocolate, contemplating going back to England, when I saw a bear. In the airport. A huge brown grizzly bear.

  I know, I know, it must be lack of sleep or those in-flight G&Ts or the surprise at finding myself alive after that awful storm. I’m probably in shock. But I saw a bear.

  People were just walking straight past it, so I’m pretty sure it was just me seeing him. And he was looking at me, his big, black, glassy eyes staring straight at mine. And he walked right past me, out into the snow. And I followed him, and then he wasn’t there any more. I mean, he never was there, right? But you know what I mean? And then a taxi pulled up by my side, and I got in.

  #WhereisNiilo #LoveQue
st #LaplandDash #AFrickenBear?

  * * *

  After a bit of screaming and dancing around the flat in my pyjamas – I hope Piero’s asleep downstairs or the sound of the fireworks masked my elated cries – I find myself climbing into bed, breathless and sobbing, actual, proper, howling sobs.

  I scroll through the photographs on Nari’s blog, just to drive in the very last nail and make sure I really am profoundly unhappy. There we all are: Niilo and Nari, me and Stellan, me and Toivo.

  I’m throwing the empty tissue box by my bedside to the floor with a big weepy sniff and wondering if there’s any loo roll in the bathroom when another notification pops up on my phone, just minutes after the last one. A text this time, from Nari.

  I hope you get this. I’m nearly at the resort. What do you want me to say to Stellan?

  And, look at this. I had it in my hand all the way home on the plane and couldn’t show it to you in case I cried, sorry! It was all just too much at the time. It’s the song Niilo wrote for me, in case you think I’m doing the wrong thing. Actually, I know you don’t think that. And I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to tell you about Stephen either. I told him I couldn’t see him at New Year. It wouldn’t be right when I love someone else. Tell me what to do about Stellan. Nari, xx

  Attached to the text is a photograph of a piece of pale blue paper with creases folded into it. I zoom in on the handwriting, and the tears start again as I read.

  Sorry, my translation is not good. Some things there are no English words for. But this is your joik, Love Niilo.

  Nari. Nari Bell.

  I was waiting for you.

  I knew you before we met.

  Did you recognise me?

  The first person to see me clearly.